Event Detail

Tue Apr 7, 2009
201 Moses, 4–6 PM

Conal Condren (New South Wales)Lucianic Humour in Philosophy: Hobbes, His Critics and a Paradox of Contextualisation

Histories of philosophy are largely trajectories of doctrine and
proposition leading to and judged by current standards of philosophical
propriety; in them, the historical importance of the persona of the
philosopher in early modern debate has been largely overlooked as it is
not overtly important now. One consequence of trying to render histories
of philosophy less anachronistic has been to uncover the significance of
serio laudere satire in philosophy, embracing argumentative reduction of
doctrines and ad hominem denigration of the philosophers associated with
them.

This paper takes the case of Thomas Hobbes and the hostile reception of
his work and suggests that there were intelligible philosophical grounds
for Hobbes and his critics to have been arguing in ways that now seem
philosophically improper. The paradoxical consequence is that better
contextualization can make interpretation not less, but more problematic
than is often thought.